‘Not a normal pattern. Suicides usually jump a distance when they’ve decided to go and he’d have had to jump backwards to have grabbed the wall. If that was the case, gravity would probably have tipped him onto his back very high up, making it impossible for him to have got a hold on the wall with his fingertips.’

‘If I decided to commit suicide out at Tantallon, I’d jump off the cliffs into the sea, not from the castle walls to the ground. Too messy,’ Ava added.

‘So, not suicide. Accident, then?’ Callanach asked.

‘A much more likely prospect,’ Ava said, ‘and one I’m still seriously contemplating. It’s possible he slipped, managed to get a hold for a while but couldn’t pull himself back up, particularly given the ripping of the fingernails. Only, it’s not that easy to fall off the walls at Tantallon. If it was, they wouldn’t let anyone onto any part of the castle. He had to have climbed onto the outer aspect of the wall.’

‘Misadventure?’ Callanach queried. ‘Being a bit brave, climbs up, slips, grabs hold and it all goes wrong. Any sign of drink or drugs?’

‘No odour when I opened the stomach or brain to suggest serious alcohol intake, and I usually know pretty quickly if that’s an issue. As far as drugs go, I’ve taken samples for a tox screen and put those on a high-priority request. What I wanted to show you is this …’

Ailsa put the man’s hand back down on the metal pallet and positioned the magnifying glass over his middle finger, adjusting the light so it was flat over the top.

‘Look here,’ she said.

Ava and Callanach leaned in for a closer look, turning their heads to check from different angles.

‘I give up,’ Ava said eventually. ‘The hand’s badly bruised, with substantial grazing. I can see the three ripped nails. It’s all what I’d expect.’

‘All right, what you don’t know is that only one of these fingers is fractured. Middle finger, right at the top, in the distal phalange near the base of the nail.’

Callanach slipped his gloved finger underneath the area and felt the bone.

‘I can’t feel anything,’ he said.

‘The break isn’t displaced, so I wouldn’t expect you to. It only showed up on the X-ray, but there’s no healing at all, and fingers heal quickly, so it’s a new break but not caused by the force of the fall. It’s distinct from the other fractures.’

‘Caused when he was gripping the rock?’ Ava asked.